Posted: 5/19/2011 7:33:41 PM EDT
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An earlier post about the plugs preventing dirt from falling out the bottom of the grip and causing it to fill up with gunk got me wondering about mine. I had never heard anything like this and wondered if I was carrying around a bunch of crap.
I took my plug out, first time it has been out since I installed it about 10 years ago. There wasn't anything but a little dust. This gun has been my daily carry/ off duty gun for over 10 years. I installed one on my duty gun a few years ago as well, a G21, I'll bet it is also clean. I think the "Your backstrap will fill up with shit" is just an internet myth.... here's the pics: Tried to get a close up of the backstrap, kinda blurry. 
A little bit of dirt around the nipple that goes in the lanyard hole. Dirtiest part of the whole gun. 
I'd be interested to hear if someone has had negative results with a plug. My un-scientific data says they DON'T collect junk. |
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I thought the point in them was to keep junk out in the first place. Nothing should be there to trap.
When I carry my G17 IWB, no undershirt, with my shirt tucked in, it collects a lot of crap. Hard to find a plug for the Gen 4 though. Guess I will have to break down and order one from Glockmeister. |
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The plug keeps thing from GETTING in in the first place. Where the plug is best is if you are on the ground rolling around with a bad guy and you get some gravel, dirt, sand, mulch, in the grip opening that travels up to the action that might cause the pistol not to fire... That is not going to happen with a butt plug in there. |
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Quoted: The plug keeps thing from GETTING in in the first place. Where the plug is best is if you are on the ground rolling around with a bad guy and you get some gravel, dirt, sand, mulch, in the grip opening that travels up to the action that might cause the pistol not to fire... That is not going to happen with a butt plug in there. Look up the back strap channel. It goes through a small hole that leads to the bottom of the trigger mechanism housing where nothing is. It is far more likely that debris would enter the trigger bar clearance cut on the slide cover plate, and that leads directly to the connector/trigger bar interface which is the most critical point in the Glock's lock work and nobody stresses over that. |
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Quoted:
The plug keeps thing from GETTING in in the first place. Where the plug is best is if you are on the ground rolling around with a bad guy and you get some gravel, dirt, sand, mulch, in the grip opening that travels up to the action that might cause the pistol not to fire... That is not going to happen with a butt plug in there. This. But 80% of the Glock forum is convinced that every time you fire a round, your Glock takes a 3 pound shit and it comes out of that little channel, so if you plug it your gun is going to get backed up and filled to the brim with crap. |
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Quoted: Quoted: The plug keeps thing from GETTING in in the first place. Where the plug is best is if you are on the ground rolling around with a bad guy and you get some gravel, dirt, sand, mulch, in the grip opening that travels up to the action that might cause the pistol not to fire... That is not going to happen with a butt plug in there. Look up the back strap channel. It goes through a small hole that leads to the bottom of the trigger mechanism housing where nothing is. It is far more likely that debris would enter the trigger bar clearance cut on the slide cover plate, and that leads directly to the connector/trigger bar interface which is the most critical point in the Glock's lock work and nobody stresses over that. Nothing?!?!?! How about the arm of the trigger bar that the return spring is connected to, which could easily be jammed up so that it cannot move down and reaward to fire, or jammed up so that it cannot move forward to reset? That is nothing to you? I see what you mean about the rear plate, but that part does not have the ability to "scoop up" and funnel debris into the action like the grip hole could. A plug is cheap insurance. Some people hate insurance, to each their own. I will never convince you that a plug is a good thing to have, you will never convince me that it is not. |
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Just an FYI, if you want to take a close up picture with your camera look for the macro option. It usually has a small flower as its symbol.
Link |
| when i took a glock in to smyrna for service, along with the parts in the baggie that were returned after the refurb, the plug was in the baggie too. so glocks opinion, is if they see them the first thing they do is remove them. the armorer said that "mr glock boggles at the fact that americans are the only people who put plugs in drains on purpose". i get the impression its a moisture drain, not a solids-crap drain. |
Honestly, I use grip plugs from Glockmeister in all my Glocks, but not for debris. They complete the notch on the backstrap and provide a nice rounded bevel for better reloads when I index the back of the mag there before insertion. The fact they keep out dirt and lint is a bonus. 
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Quoted:
Just an FYI, if you want to take a close up picture with your camera look for the macro option. It usually has a small flower as its symbol. Link Thanks, but I took the pic with my 8.0 megapixel cell phone, it doesn't have that option. |
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I personally had the exact opposite experience than you, and a few years back there was a guy on Glocktalk that posted about his experience in mud.
In my case, when I bought some of my first Glocks, I thought it was cool to deck them out. I bought plugs for a few of the Glocks. The plug on my G27 crept out on its own after a handful of rounds were fired. The "solution" is to glue them in. No thanks, the plug went in the garbage. I also installed a plug on another model which I was shooting quite a bit at the time. I don't recall which one it was. Probably the G38 or G37. With just a couple of weeks of shooting, transporting, and carrying the gun, I decided to pull the plug while cleaning the gun. There was quite a bit of lint, dust, oily residue, and spent powder that I realized how stupid putting that plug on there was. Don't get me wrong, the cavity wasn't full, or even partially full, but it was quite obvious that my unplugged Glocks did not retain the same amount of junk. The other guy was kayaking, or canoeing, or something along those lines when he got overturned while holster carrying a Glock. He was pummeled pretty bad in the mud bottom of the stream and when he finally made it back to dry land, he checked his gear out and noticed the Glock was full of mud. He attempted to fire it just to see what would happen, and it wouldn't fire. He pulled the plug, the cavity was filled with mud and sand. He cleaned the gun up and it shot perfectly again. He was curious so he did an experiment in the same mud with and without the plug. He claimed the plugged Glock did the same thing again, while the unplugged one allowed the junk to drain out enough to where the gun still fired fine. Internet myth? Maybe. But I know what I saw. |
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Quoted: Nothing?!?!?! How about the arm of the trigger bar that the return spring is connected to, which could easily be jammed up so that it cannot move down and reaward to fire, or jammed up so that it cannot move forward to reset? That is nothing to you? The hole is only about 4mm square, Not much is going to get up there. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Nothing?!?!?! How about the arm of the trigger bar that the return spring is connected to, which could easily be jammed up so that it cannot move down and reaward to fire, or jammed up so that it cannot move forward to reset? That is nothing to you? The hole is only about 4mm square, Not much is going to get up there. Drop a 3.99mm pebble in there and see how well it shoots... |
| It is unlikely that I will be shooting my Glock wet or underwater but like most adds which aren't really necessary, I installed the maritime spring cups so I could fire my Glock wet. I also installed a butt plug, not to keep crap out, but because of the fact it makes HIGH SPEED MAG INSERTION MORE RELIABLE. Why do I mention the water factor??? Because I drilled a hole towards the rear of my plug to allow water to drain. |
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Quoted:
Mr. Glock put that hole there for a reason..it is so the shooter can more easily rip a stuck mag out of the if need be. I have never understood the need/desire for a plug, it undermines an important feature of the gun. This was even more true when the Glock was first developed,and still using the earlier generations of mags with the smaller baseplates |
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Quoted: Mr. Glock put that hole there for a reason..it is so the shooter can more easily rip a stuck mag out of the if need be. I have never understood the need/desire for a plug, it undermines an important feature of the gun. The newer frames lack the front cutout, so this could not have been too important to Mr. Glock after all. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Mr. Glock put that hole there for a reason..it is so the shooter can more easily rip a stuck mag out of the if need be. I have never understood the need/desire for a plug, it undermines an important feature of the gun. The newer frames lack the front cutout, so this could not have been too important to Mr. Glock after all. That doesn't make any sense. If it wasn't too important to him at all, why would he have designed them into the gun from the beginning, and the better part of the 25 years or so the gun has been on the US market? |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Mr. Glock put that hole there for a reason..it is so the shooter can more easily rip a stuck mag out of the if need be. I have never understood the need/desire for a plug, it undermines an important feature of the gun. The newer frames lack the front cutout, so this could not have been too important to Mr. Glock after all. That doesn't make any sense. If it wasn't too important to him at all, why would he have designed them into the gun from the beginning, and the better part of the 25 years or so the gun has been on the US market? Designs change. While it may have had a valid reason when the weapon was first developed [As I understand it, early Glock mags didn't have that metal insert they have now], advances in the design, even subtle, and changing the mags might have negated the reason for that particular design feature in later versions. I'm not saying that's how it is, just offering a point of view. |
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Mr. Glock put that hole there for a reason..it is so the shooter can more easily rip a stuck mag out of the if need be. I have never understood the need/desire for a plug, it undermines an important feature of the gun. The newer frames lack the front cutout, so this could not have been too important to Mr. Glock after all. That doesn't make any sense. If it wasn't too important to him at all, why would he have designed them into the gun from the beginning, and the better part of the 25 years or so the gun has been on the US market? Designs change. While it may have had a valid reason when the weapon was first developed [As I understand it, early Glock mags didn't have that metal insert they have now], advances in the design, even subtle, and changing the mags might have negated the reason for that particular design feature in later versions. I'm not saying that's how it is, just offering a point of view. No kidding. That still doesn't mean that the recent change in design means it wasn't "too important to Mr. Glock after all." It obviously was important to him for a very long time, or he would have changed the design when they started making the type of magazines in the early '90s. |
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Quoted:
I personally had the exact opposite experience than you, and a few years back there was a guy on Glocktalk that posted about his experience in mud. In my case, when I bought some of my first Glocks, I thought it was cool to deck them out. I bought plugs for a few of the Glocks. The plug on my G27 crept out on its own after a handful of rounds were fired. The "solution" is to glue them in. No thanks, the plug went in the garbage. I also installed a plug on another model which I was shooting quite a bit at the time. I don't recall which one it was. Probably the G38 or G37. With just a couple of weeks of shooting, transporting, and carrying the gun, I decided to pull the plug while cleaning the gun. There was quite a bit of lint, dust, oily residue, and spent powder that I realized how stupid putting that plug on there was. Don't get me wrong, the cavity wasn't full, or even partially full, but it was quite obvious that my unplugged Glocks did not retain the same amount of junk. The other guy was kayaking, or canoeing, or something along those lines when he got overturned while holster carrying a Glock. He was pummeled pretty bad in the mud bottom of the stream and when he finally made it back to dry land, he checked his gear out and noticed the Glock was full of mud. He attempted to fire it just to see what would happen, and it wouldn't fire. He pulled the plug, the cavity was filled with mud and sand. He cleaned the gun up and it shot perfectly again. He was curious so he did an experiment in the same mud with and without the plug. He claimed the plugged Glock did the same thing again, while the unplugged one allowed the junk to drain out enough to where the gun still fired fine. Internet myth? Maybe. But I know what I saw. What model was the guy who fell in the stream carrying? |
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Quoted:
Mr. Glock put that hole there for a reason..it is so the shooter can more easily rip a stuck mag out of the if need be. I have never understood the need/desire for a plug, it undermines an important feature of the gun. This. If Glock intened that hole to be there, it was for a reason. |